


Carjacked

by MsMxyzptlk



Category: Jahar Tsarnaev
Genre: Boston Marathon bombing, Carjacking, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:20:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMxyzptlk/pseuds/MsMxyzptlk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Tsarnaev brothers had carjacked a girl that night?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carjacked

_I’ll be home soon._

I had just texted those words to my dorm roomie when I heard a loud knock on my car window.

I turned my head, expecting it to be one of the other people who attended tonight’s workshop on filmmaking in college.

It was a tall man with a gray hoodie shadowing his face. I’d never seen him before.

“What is it?” I instinctively asked.

He didn’t say anything.

Now it was time to be wary. I put my key in the ignition, ready to speed away.

A loud “Bang!” fell upon my window. I turned my head.

The man had pressed an automatic gun against the window.

My insides turned to jelly as I fumbled to open the door. _It’s only a car. It’s only a car. It’s only a car. Let him have it._

I opened the door and moved to step out so he could take the Toyota Rav4 which used to belong to my mother. The man pointed the gun right into my face.

“You’re not going anywhere, girl.” The man’s thick, syrupy voice proved that he was not born in this country. “Get in the other seat.”

I did, though I had to lift my butt over the automatic to get to the passenger seat. The man got into the driver’s seat. He was big. Very big.

He let out what I imagined was an expletive in his native language and pushed the seat way back so he had room to drive. He started the car, and drove out of the parking lot, going in the opposite direction from my university.

His hoodie fell halfway off his head. I saw that he had thick, nearly black hair, combed straight back, and a close-cropped beard. His nose was prominent and aquiline, jutting out of his face like a blade on a saw.

If he hadn’t invaded my vehicle at the point of a gun, I would have thought him quite handsome, though he looked a bit older than the boys in my circle of friends.

He suddenly rolled into a residential street. In the dark, and especially here in the old suburbs of Boston, these streets were extra-narrow and extra-tricky. The lights led the way to a small green sedan. The man parked my Rav4 right behind it.

“You stay here, or I shoot you.”

“Okay.”

He got out of the driver’s seat. At the same time, another man got out of the green sedan. He also wore a gray hoodie, only this one had a stylized blue and yellow Adidas logo on the front. As he came closer to the Rav4, I noticed that he was also tall, but considerably thinner than the man who had carjacked me.

The two men spoke to each other in a non-English language. Then, they went to the green sedan and opened its trunk. They lifted obviously heavy black bags out of it and carried them to the back of the Rav4. The man who had carjacked me opened the back of my car, and they shoved the black bags into the cargo area.

I leaned hard into my seat. _It must be luggage. Wherever they are going, they are going far away._

_Will they take me with them? Am I to be their hostage...or will they let me go right now?_

I would not, could not think of the alternative.

The man who had carjacked me unlocked one of the doors to the back seats, and the thinner man got in. It was too dark in the back to see his face, but when I turned my head to look, the man who had carjacked me jumped back in the driver’s seat.

“What are you looking at?” he demanded. “Mind your business.”

He started the car and drove out of the neighborhood with a tight U-turn.

“Ummm...” I wanted to speak. I wanted to ask a hell of a lot of questions. Especially since they were using my car. And taking my body away from my regularly scheduled life.

What got in the way was a nine-inch gun now resting in the cup holder in the middle of the car – a gun in the control of the man who had brought it and knew how to use it.

Curiosity would not kill _this_ cat.

“So.”

I lifted my head. The man driving the car glanced at me.

“You heard about the bombs at the Boston Marathon?”

Heard about the bombs at the Boston Marathon? That was the only thing most people talked about all week. It was the most shocking tragedy ever to happen in our city. Who the hell could think of planting bombs at a peaceful, politically neutral sporting event – and why would they do such a cruel thing, killing and maiming so many people?

“Yes,” I replied calmly.

“ _I_ did that,” the man declared.

The air drained out of my lungs.

This would not be an ordinary carjacking, if ever a carjacking could be ordinary.

This man was the most wanted criminal in the country, if not the world.

“Actually... _we_ did that. My brother and me.”

I looked in the back seat. The brighter lights of the main road intermittently illuminated the other man’s face. A dark waterfall of curly hair covered most of his forehead. His skin was pale, his nascent beard merely a few hairs on his chin. His lips were two shiny shells, soft and pink.

_He doesn’t look that much older than me._

“Don’t look too close. No, it does not matter. By the time this is over, it will not matter.”

What?

“We are going to Manhattan. We have one more bomb. We will detonate it in Times Square and cause even more destruction.”

“Why?”

The older brother laughed sharply, without humor.

“If you don’t know, girl, you haven’t been paying attention. America is at war against Islam. My brother and I, we’re striking back.”

Strangely, I could understand how he felt. America’s wars were in mostly Islamic countries. But how could only two bombs, killing just three people, be any kind of balance?

“You won’t change anyone’s mind by doing this.”

“But we _will_ bring the war home. Where it hurts.”

* * *

Now we were on I-90 west, heading toward New York City. From what I remembered from numerous family journeys, the ride would take approximately four hours.

This time, I wouldn’t have books, music, or radio to pass the time. I wouldn’t even have good conversation. The two men in the Rav4 spoke to each other in their foreign language, as if I weren’t there at all.

I was getting a read on their relationship. The older man was clearly in charge. His words to his younger brother were short, sharp, and demanding. The younger man was quick to obey, first offering up a GPS device, then a CD in a paper sleeve. I caught the briefest glimpse of the handwriting on the top of the CD. Cyrillic. The men were speaking Russian – which might have as well been Martian as far as I was concerned. My experience was in Latin-based languages only.

The older brother slid the CD into the player. A high-pitched yet masculine voice intoned extended, buzzing notes which were not quite music, but far from normal speech. It was a sound not just from another world, but another form of consciousness.

The two brothers were as silent as stones as the CD played. They did not need to say that I was to be just as quiet.

The quiet gave me the chance to not only hear but feel the voice. It picked up my brain and rocked it back and forth, making it forget, just for now, that I was being abducted by the men who bombed the Boston Marathon. It made me remember that it was my usual time to sleep.

What else could I do right now?

I nestled into the seat, closed my eyes, and forgot the world.

* * *

A hard yank on my hair ripped me out of my slumber.

“Get out.”

I blinked. Instead of being back in my dorm room where I belonged, the older brother stood framed by the open back door of the Rav4, glaring at me with relentless black eyes.

I slowly sat up. The man grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the vehicle.

I looked around me. We were parked in front of a brick building with a steep stairwell leading up to two red doors. The younger brother was at the back of the Rav4, pulling the two black duffel bags out of the storage space.

_The bomb._

The older brother gripped my arm tighter, reminding me of his superior strength – and his gun. He accepted one bag from his brother, then carried it up the stairs with one hand while dragging me along with the other.

I caught a brief glimpse of the street. I did not recognize any landmarks, but I knew we were in New York City. It had an electric hum that never stopped, even in the wee hours of the morning.

Before I could think about this anymore, the older brother pulled me through the red doors. The younger brother followed us.

We were in a small room painted a blue which may have been cheerful at one time but now was coated with tobacco and grime. A sagging brown couch and some plastic chairs sat on an Asian-style rug whose colors were obscured under a flurry of dusty footprints. A metal sign on the wall listed rules that would never need to be made clear in, say, the Waldorf-Astoria: “No drinking/drug use in the lobby. No fighting. No loitering...”

The older brother handed the younger brother a fistful of cash. The younger brother approached a service window, where a balding man wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses sat.

“One room, two nights, please.” The younger brother’s voice was soft and lilting.

The man behind the window glanced at the older brother and me.

“You all together?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s extra. Sixty dollars per night.”

The younger brother gave the man what he asked for, and the man gave him a key that had been hanging from a hook on the wall.

“Number 21. Just up the stairs.”

“Thank you.”

The younger brother picked up his duffel bag, the older brother picked up his, and we all walked up the narrow stairway.

* * *

The room was no better than I expected.

The walls were painted an uninspiring beige, and the coating of grime did it no favors. A round table covered with faux-woodgrain contact paper sat between two chairs upholstered in brown vinyl. One of them had a large tear, exposing foam the color of an overboiled yolk. An old-fashioned tube television was stuck in a brass pole in the corner.

The room had two full-sized beds covered in a polyester bedspread with a hideous brown daisy pattern. The same material was used for the curtains of the single narrow window, which the older brother pulled shut as soon as he put down his bag.

I stood still and silent in this strange room with these strange men who had done a singularly horrible thing. If this were a novel, and if I were a heroine, I would be looking around every inch of the room, searching for the one weakness which would allow me to escape.

But I was not the heroine of a book. If I was, I would have gotten hold of the older brother’s gun by now.

I was not clever. I was not smart. I was a scared girl who wanted nothing more than to survive.

The older brother reached into his hoodie and gave the gun to his younger sibling. He said a couple of words, then stepped through the door of the adjacent bathroom. The younger brother looked down at the gun, then pointed it at me.

“Stay still.”

He spoke as mildly as he did to the hotel clerk. But it was his words, almost as much as the gun, which ensured my stillness.

Even though it made no sense – I knew almost nothing about this young man – my intuition told me he wouldn’t _really_ shoot me if I moved. But I still froze...because believe it or not, I wanted to help him do the job his brother had assigned to him.

The older brother came out of the bathroom and took the gun from the younger brother, who went into the bathroom. The older brother grinned as he pointed the gun at me.

He _would_ shoot me if I moved.

The younger brother came out of the bathroom.

“Do you have to piss, girl?” asked the older brother.

I shook my head. I hadn’t had anything to drink since he tapped on my window.

“You’d better go anyway.”

He hustled me into the bathroom, which was equipped with a sink, a booth shower with a white curtain, and a toilet. He was going to watch me, whatever I did.

“Sit.”

I pulled down my leggings, then my panties. I would not look into his face. I sat down, keeping my eyes on the floor as I pushed out a tiny trickle of urine. I wiped myself, then tried to stand.

The older brother pushed me back down.

“Take off your shoes.”

I didn’t understand why, but I did it anyway.

“Now take off your clothes. All of them.”

The order stunned me.

“But why – ” My curiosity made a surprise comeback.

The older brother pointed his gun at my belly.

“Don’t fucking ask why. Just do it.”

I stepped out of my panties and leggings, then pulled off the gray college sweatshirt on top. I wore a white V-neck T-shirt and a bra underneath. As I removed those as well, I began to shiver. I could not tell whether it was because I was cold or because I was scared.

When I was completely naked, I instinctively crossed my hands over my body so he couldn’t see my breasts or my crotch.

“Now get out there.”

The older brother opened the door, and I walked out. I looked away from the younger brother, who was taking objects out of one of the duffel bags. The older brother said a few sharp words to his sibling, and he reached into the bag and gave him a bundle of white satin rope and a pair of large scissors. The older brother grinned, and yanked off the bedspread of the bed furthest from the front door.

“Lie down.”

I did so, very carefully, still keeping myself covered. The sheets were not quite white, and smelled of lingering tobacco.

The older brother grabbed one of my wrists and bound it to the headboard with a length of rope. He cut the piece of rope off of the bundle, then did the same with my other wrist. As he leaned over me, I could smell the dankness of his sweat absorbed in his hoodie.

He moved lower and tied my ankles to the bottom of the bed. Now I was naked, spread open, unable to cover myself.

Unable to hide from the gaze of these men.

The older brother looked down at his handiwork, and smiled an evil smile.

“Jahar!”

The younger brother lifted his head. The older brother pointed at me and unleashed a stream of words in Russian, ending his sentence by rubbing his crotch.

It may sound hard to believe, but when the older brother ordered me to strip, I thought it was just to keep me from running away. I didn’t imagine that my nudity had another purpose.

I was eighteen years old, and I was still a virgin.

I hadn’t even been kissed by a boy yet.

The older brother turned back to me and strolled to the edge of the bed.

“Tamerlan.”

The younger brother had raised his voice.

“Tamerlan, don’t.”

The younger brother grabbed his sibling’s arm, but the big man shook it away like a fly and unzipped his pants.

“It’s wrong.”

The older brother – whom I now knew as Tamerlan – stared down the young man, whose name must be Jahar.

“This is a fucking _war,_ Jahar. There is no right or wrong in war. You’re gonna find that out right now.”

Tamerlan turned his head to me. A smile spread over his face – a smile of pure greed.

_This is going to happen._

_This is really going to happen._

_The gift I was saving for the first boy to open my heart is going to be stolen by this terrorist._

Tamerlan took the gun out of his hoodie and tucked it in the back right pocket of his jeans. He pulled off his hoodie and threw it onto the floor. He wore a black T-shirt underneath, a shirt that barely contained his muscles.

My whole body trembled in fear.

He unzipped his jeans and pulled them down to the middle of his thighs. He reached into his white boxer briefs and pulled out his erect penis. I did know what a penis looked like. I had browsed anatomy books before.

This one was thick and monstrous.

“Fornication is normally a sin in Islam,” he said. “But you are a prisoner of war, so it is allowed.”

Tamerlan crawled on top of me. My world filled up with his presence. His humid panting sprayed my face.

He was heavy, so heavy; it was as if a refrigerator had fallen on top of me. He pushed the air right out of my body, and I struggled getting it back in. His hips ground into the tenderness between my legs.

But he was not inside yet. Even as a virgin, I knew.

Naively, I hoped he didn’t know.

Tamerlan spat into his hand, rubbed it on his penis, and shoved his hips into mine.

Now I felt it. An intense pressure in the center of my body, as if a large cucumber was trying to force itself in. I whimpered.

He reached down to guide his penis, and then –

The spit was not enough. His penis plunged into me with the tearing force of a knife.

I could not help myself. I began to cry wildly.

“Please, stop!” I begged. _“STOP!”_

Tamerlan shoved his face into mine until our noses touched.

“Don’t play fucking games. I know you American sluts like it.”

He tore into me. Again. And again. And again.

I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn’t have to look at the monster above me. I wished I could close off the rest of my senses, too – the ripping agony, the sound of his grunts, and his repeated phrase that sounded like, “Track nut yeeya...track nut _yee-yahhh!”_

Never had I felt so powerless.

But...was I really?

My rational voice spoke up.

 _Tamerlan can use your body for a few minutes,_ it said. _But he can never own it. He WILL never own it._

_He is the weak one. He can’t control himself._

_You don’t have to let rape define you. As long as you stay alive, you’re going to be okay._

When I understood exactly what that meant, the horror drained away like used bathtub water. I stopped crying.

_I’ll be okay, because I WILL stay alive._

Tamerlan let out a roar, a roar that sprayed spittle on my face, then backed away, pulling out of my body. The fullness between my legs vanished, leaving an aching, stinging void.

_It’s over._

Tamerlan backed away from me and stood at the edge of the bed. His penis, now limp but still big, dangled between his legs.

“Heh.” He just stood there, grinning like a little boy who had just discovered the word “poop.” “Heh. Heh heh heh.”

_This man standing and laughing with his business hanging out would be so funny...if he hadn’t just raped me._

“You liked that, huh, bitch?” He pulled his pants back up. “You liked my big Chechen cock all up in your business. Today’s your lucky day – here comes another. _Jahar!”_

Jahar had been standing in a corner, his face turned away from the bed.

“Jahar...” Tamerlan grabbed his brother by the shoulders and steered him towards me. “Track nut yeeya!”

Jahar’s eyes traveled all over my body...as if I were a treasure chest he’d just unburied.

He stepped toward the bed...and unzipped his pants.

_Not again._

“Jahar – ” I cried.

Tamerlan reached into his jeans and pointed the gun at my forehead.

“Not another sound out of you, unless it’s moaning about how good his cock makes you feel.”

Unlike his brother, Jahar took off his pants completely, stepping out of them as well as his shoes and leaving them on the floor. Then, he lowered his black boxer briefs.

I turned my head away. I could not stand the sight of another penis right now.

Jahar crawled over my body. He supported himself with one hand and spat into the other before rubbing it on his penis like Tamerlan had done...and then he lay down on me.

In me.

It didn’t hurt the way Tamerlan’s entrance did. Not physically, at least.

It was my soul which screamed in pain.

My body didn’t belong to me anymore. It was now the property of these two men...to be used to relieve themselves in. Like a toilet.

_No. Remember the truth. They can’t touch you where it matters._

_Get through this, and you will live to see another day._

My voice of reason supported my soul like a skeleton, holding up all that mattered.

I looked over Jahar’s shoulder. Tamerlan was standing next to the bed, leering down at us.

I closed my eyes and turned away, inadvertently tucking my face into Jahar’s cheek. He breathed loudly as he thrust. His breath smelled minty, as if he’d been chewing Altoids recently.

He was nowhere near as heavy as Tamerlan, and his hips were narrower, but his penis was just about the same size. It didn’t feel like it was tearing me, though; it was more of a neutral rubbing.

Jahar was certainly more exploratory than his brother. His hands were on every inch of my skin he could reach, stroking and groping. He was careful with my breasts, though, petting them gently as if they were baby bunnies.

Tamerlan made a smirking Russian comment. Jahar turned his head and uttered a sharp rebuke in the same language. He quickly focused on me again.

“I’m sorry,” he said in English.

Was he sorry for his brother’s words? What his hands were doing? What the rest of his body was doing? What they did three days ago?

“Uhhh...don’t worry.” He nestled his face into my hair. “You feel good. I’ll finish soon...real soon.”

He pushed harder and deeper. My heart trembled in fear...but my body reacted differently, rising up to...what? Get closer to him? Help him?

_Why?_

Jahar gripped my shoulders. He arched his back sharply. He groaned once, twice, louder the second time, throwing back his head.

It was done.

He placed his forehead on mine. Our mouths were only a tiny space apart. He breathed his peppermint breath into me.

It was so easy to kiss...if kissing was the right thing to do now.

It wasn’t.

Jahar slowly crawled off of me, panting. He looked down at me with sorrow in his eyes.

Tamerlan was now lying on the other bed. He’d taken off his shoes and was turned to face us. He said something Russian to Jahar and laughed.

Jahar’s reply had the same tone as “Fuck you.”

Tamerlan leapt out of bed and shoved his face into Jahar’s, screaming invective. Jahar screamed right back. Tamerlan raised his fist.

I turned away.

Jahar made a sound which meant “Quiet!” in any language.

Tamerlan backed off and sat down on the bed.

Jahar turned to me, shrugged, then pulled the sheet over my naked body. It was an act that returned a small piece of dignity to me.

“Thank you, Jahar.”

“Try to sleep,” he replied. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”

Tamerlan was already under the covers and snoring. Jahar put his pants back on and sat down on the bed. He kept his eyes on me until he turned off the light and lay down next to his brother.

* * *

It wasn’t easy to go to sleep when you weren’t free to turn over.

I tried, I really did. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was back in my dorm room, where I belonged right now.

The ropes holding my arms and legs to the bed kept me from pretending to be anywhere other than where I was: in a cheap hotel room in New York City with the men who had bombed the Boston Marathon.

Tied down naked. And vulnerable.

If either – or both – of them woke up and wanted relief of a non-bathroom kind, I had no power to stop it.

The realization made me weep.

 _You still belong to you,_ said my reason. _Remember that._

I had to.

Truth was all I had left.

* * *

Yet somehow, sleep did come to me.

How could I tell?

I opened my eyes and saw the face of Jahar looming over me. The room was bathed in sunlight, for the curtain was open halfway.

He sat on the edge of the bed with a somber expression on his face. He was wearing a black T-shirt and his jeans from last night. His hair looked completely uncombed, a tangled forest of curls.

“Hey,” he said. “Good morning” was not the right phrase right now.

“Hello, Jahar.”

“Tamerlan is out getting breakfast. Coffee and pancakes. Everyone loves pancakes, right?”

“I do.”

“Good.” He smiled briefly, and it brought a light to his face that made him look almost...adorable.

Like a guy I would have noticed in class or at the cafeteria...a guy I would have smiled back at.

_Where did you go wrong, Jahar?_

“I have a question.”

He looked down at his hands.

“When I got on top of you last night, I...um, saw blood on your thigh.” He let the sentence end there. “Were you a virgin?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.” Jahar covered his face with his hands. “Not that it wouldn’t have still been bad if you weren’t, but...that was your first time. _Your first time._ You only get one...and for you it was rape.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...I’ve never taken a girl against her will before. Never had to. Never even wanted to. How good can it be when one person’s scared?”

He put his hands in his lap and turned to face me.

“In the months before the bombing, I was turning away from the college party lifestyle. I’d stopped drinking. I’d stopped smoking – everything. And I’d stopped hooking up with girls. When I got involved in Tamerlan’s plan and the righteousness of it, I saw my old life as nothing but cheap thrills.

“But when I saw you lying on the bed...a beautiful naked girl, your skin so soft, your hair so flowing...I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to be inside you. _Needed_ to be inside you. When I watched Tamerlan taking you, that did it. There was no way I wouldn’t be having you, too.”

“Jahar...it’s okay.”

The words stunned me.

How could rape ever be okay?

Maybe it was because I didn’t feel I was in danger.

Tamerlan’s strength was harsh. Threatening. He not only didn’t care that he hurt me, he would have relished it if he had known.

Jahar’s strength...it felt like protection. Like caring. If Tamerlan had tried to pull him off when he was on me, he would have attacked his big brother with everything he had.

“No...” Jahar shook his head. “Rape is _never_ okay. I’m sorry I did it. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“You have it anyway.”

Jahar’s mouth lifted slightly. It was as close to a smile as he could get without actually smiling.

“What does ‘track nut yeeya’ mean?”

“Something nasty.”

“I can take it.”

“It means...‘Fuck her.’”

The click of the door broke our conversation. Jahar got off the bed.

Tamerlan came in, carrying a cardboard cup holder with one hand and a white plastic bag with the other. The cup holder held three paper coffee cups, two tall and one small. He put the bag on the table between the two beds. Jahar reached into it and pulled out a plastic food container. He opened it, and the sweet smell of freshly-cooked pancakes filled the air.

“Yum.” He placed the container on the bed, so I could see what was in it. “Want butter and syrup, too?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Jahar reached into the bag and found a pat of butter wrapped in foil and a small container of maple syrup. He opened them and put them on top of the stack of three pancakes. It was a small grace that the butter melted.

“Here.” He stood up and reached for the rope that bound my right hand to the bed.

“What the fuck are you doing?” demanded Tamerlan.

“She can’t feed herself if her hands are up here.”

“You wanted food for her – _you_ feed her.”

Jahar sighed.

“Sorry,” he said to me.

He sat back down on the bed. He tore off a piece of the stack with a plastic fork and brought it to my mouth, as if I were a baby in a high chair.

If Jahar and I were by ourselves, and if I weren’t tied up to the bed, I’d enjoy this feeling of being nurtured.

Nurtured...by a murderer, terrorist, and rapist.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked him.

“After you.”

_And a gentle soul._

* * *

The rest of the day went by quickly.

After breakfast, Tamerlan did untie me to allow me to go to the bathroom – under his supervision. I was pee-shy (and poop-shy), and even when I closed my eyes I couldn’t get away from his laughter and gross comments.

Once I was done, it was back to being tied to the bed for me while the brothers went to work. They unzipped one of their duffel bags to reveal a giant pressure cooker, one much too large to fit in a backpack.

They sat down on the floor and altered the cooking device, opening it up and filling it with ball bearings, nails, and petroleum jelly. They spoke to each other only in Russian now, as if I wasn’t there.

At least several times, a chiming tone emerged from one of the cell phones. When it did, the brothers would stop what they were doing, reach into their other duffel bag, take out two small rugs, and do their Muslim prayers in the direction of Mecca. Then, they would get back to work on their deadly bomb.

The incongruence made me sick.

I wanted to scream at them, _You can’t pray and plan to kill at the same time!_

But what if I did?

Tamerlan would shut me up real quick. With his gun, his penis...or both.

Eventually, Tamerlan made a call on the phone. He nodded his head, then stood up and put on his hoodie. He said some curt words to Jahar before opening the door and leaving.

Once again, Jahar and I were alone.

“Jahar...”

He turned to face me.

“Will you untie me?”

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

“Ummm...no.”

“Then I can’t do it.”

“But...it’s uncomfortable.”

“I know.” He sighed. “But here’s a question for you: if I do it, will you run away and tell the authorities? Even with no clothes on?”

How could I answer that question?

“You would. Because you’re the kind of girl who would. I can’t take that chance. If Tamerlan comes back and finds you gone – I don’t want to think about it.”

“He’d...hurt you?”

“He’d _kill_ me.”

I shuddered.

“I don’t want that to happen,” I admitted.

“Neither do I. We have a plan.”

He kneeled next to the big pressure cooker.

“This is a much bigger bomb than the ones we set off at Boylston Street. We can’t just carry it and leave it on the sidewalk. We’re going to put it in the car. Your car...and then we’ll explode it in the middle of Times Square. With us inside.”

 _All_ of us?

_How do you ask someone if he is going to blow you up tomorrow morning?_

“Just the two of us. Tamerlan and me. We’ll free you when it’s too late for you to stop us.”

“How old are you, Jahar?”

“I’m nineteen.”

“You’re only one year older than me. Don’t you...don’t you think it’s too soon?”

“It’s never too soon to be a Shaheed.”

“Shaheed?”

“Someone who dies in the act of jihad. ‘Those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah and are then slain or die; on them will Allah bestow verily a goodly provision.’ That is what the Quran says.”

Here was a young man, having his whole life ahead of him – a time to learn how to live, how to love, who to become – choosing instead to die, and kill, to gain an unfathomable ghostly paradise.

“Jahar...are you sure?”

He gave me the guileless smile of a child – which clashed with the words of death that came out of it.

“I am sure of my God; He has never led me astray.”

_What about when He told you to put your backpack down on the sidewalk?_

“This world, the one we live in, is the illusion. Paradise is the truth.” His eyes drifted to my shoulders, then quickly looked away. “Do you believe in God?”

“I...I don’t know.” There was too much tragedy and injustice in the world for me to believe in a loving God.

“It doesn’t matter. He believes in you.”

I was relieved. A brief platitude was far better than a lengthy sermon.

The door opened. Tamerlan came in – and he wasn’t alone. Another man followed him in, a short man with slicked-back black hair and a beard. He had the same golden-toned complexion as the two brothers.

Tamerlan carried a paper bag with the Whole Foods logo on it; the other man carried a smaller paper bag. He dumped its contents on the large round table. It was a bunch of wires – I presumed for use in the bomb.

The man noticed me tied down to the bed. He said a few words to Tamerlan which sounded questioning. Tamerlan laughed, then yanked the sheet off my body.

The men leered and guffawed as I cringed inside. Tamerlan pointed to me and thrust his hips sexually. The other man grasped his penis beneath his jeans.

Jahar got between them and snapped at them. He reached for the sheet to cover me up again, but Tamerlan pushed him away. The other man unbuttoned his pants.

Then, Jahar screamed at them. He pointed at me, then the other man’s crotch. The other man shook his head, and backed away. Tamerlan frowned at his brother, but he backed away as well. Instead, he showed the man the big bomb.

Jahar leaned in close to my ear.

“I told him Tamerlan and I both fucked you,” he whispered. “That’s one man too many as far as he’s concerned. He has to be first, second, or not at all.”

I opened my mouth to thank him, but he placed a finger over it.

“I know.”

He covered me up again, and joined the other men in bomb-building.

* * *

It was late at night, and Tamerlan was fast asleep, thanks to a glass pipe that he had shared with the other man. A pipe filled with a potent strain of weed.

Jahar did not partake. “It was tempting. But one of us has to be clean. You never know what will happen next.” He frowned at his brother. “And it’s better that he's out cold. If he wasn’t, he’d be on top of you right now.”

He sat down on the bed.

“Tamerlan’s a big fucking hypocrite. He only follows the rules when they let him do what he wants. I think he likes to hurt people. Likes to rape. Likes to kill. He’s married with a little girl, but he pounced on you and used the Quran to justify it.”

He lifted his head and looked out at the lights of the city through the window.

“Just like me.”

“Jahar...can I say something?”

“You can say anything you want.”

“You’re not like Tamerlan. Even when you did the same things as he did. You have different reasons.”

“Reasons don’t matter when the result is so horrible. I’ve done enough bad for a lifetime. For a million lifetimes.”

It was not my place to forgive Jahar for the bombing. What I could do was see the good boy who still lived inside of him. The good boy who was speaking to me right now.

“Do you want to turn yourself in?”

“I should. I really should. But I’m more afraid of Tamerlan than the police.” He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “How fucked up is that?”

“I understand. Tamerlan is a scary dude.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Jahar...I want to thank you for watching over me.”

The bag from Whole Foods had contained canned soup and water, which Jahar had shared with me.

“You’re welcome. But I can do much more. And I will.”

He reached up and untied my right hand, then my left. I brought my hands together in gratitude, rubbing my wrists.

“I’ll give you a little freedom tonight. The legs have to stay tied, though. I don’t know how to untie those knots.”

“Jahar...that is so sweet. Thank you.”

I used my new freedom to touch his hands. He arched his eyebrows in surprise...then grinned.

“If we’d met much earlier...”

He didn’t have to say more.

* * *

I woke up to a pale gray glow seeping from the edge of the curtains.

The beginning of a day of destruction for New York City.

The beginning of the end of Jahar’s and Tamerlan’s lives.

I swallowed a sob.

_A beautiful young man, inside and out...is going to die today...for nothing._

Then, I looked down.

Jahar stood at the end of the bed, naked, carefully sawing the rope around my ankles with a large knife.

One of my legs got free. He went to work on the other.

“Jahar...”

“I’m freeing you now. I don’t trust Tamerlan to do it. I think he wants to bring you along in the car.”

Once my other leg was free, I did what my heart told me to do.

It wasn’t running away.

I jumped towards him and grabbed him around his torso. I snuggled into his chest, then lifted my chin so I could kiss him on the lips.

“Uh...” He gently took my wrists and unhooked my arms around his body. “I know you’re grateful to be free, but you really must – “

“Let’s make love.”

“What?”

“I want to make love. With no force or fear. Just you and me.”

I placed my hands on his waist...and slid them up...up...over his smooth belly...over his pectorals...up to his throat, where I could feel his heart beating like the wings of a small bird.

“But...” He shook his head. “I can’t be your lover. I raped you.”

“You’re the only one who can make it right. Make love to me, Jahar, and _that_ will be my first time.”

I pulled him down to the bed, nestling into his soft skin. I needed it.

I needed _him._

“Jahar...please.”

I kissed his lips as tenderly as the dew kissed the grass. “Let’s create a beautiful memory that’s stronger than the bad ones.”

His brown eyes looked down into mine, swelling with emotions...and need as well.

“I can’t say no,” he whispered. “So many reasons why we shouldn’t...and one why we must – because it’s the only thing that can happen right now.”

He looked down at himself. He was hard. Hard and ready.

“Can I...can I come inside?”

_I need to come inside._

“Yes, Jahar. Yes, you can come inside.”

“Thank you.”

He positioned his hips into the right place and pushed himself inside.

I felt no pain.

Only an electrified bliss which sent multicolored sparks up my spine that exploded into flowers. A _Fantasia_ scene unspooling inside my body.

Jahar sighed deeply and brought himself down on me. His lips found my mouth, then explored my chin, my cheeks, my throat, and then went back up to my face, to my nose, to my forehead...as if he were a small boy and I were made of pure sugar.

My hands were free now, free to hold him. Hold him close. Hold him tight. Hold him so he knew I never wanted to let him go.

My fingers were free to feel him. Feel his silky mop of hair. Feel his strong muscles flex underneath his velvety skin. Feel his throat vibrate as he vocalized his desire.

His penis rubbed a healing salve into me. It could not take away the memory of the rapes, but it could take their power away with the stronger, more imprinted memory of his passionate lovemaking.

Our bodies collided with each other, faster and faster, until the fire between us burned the purest white.

“Don’t think...don’t think I can hold on...gotta come...”

“Do it, Jahar. Give me everything.”

He released into me. I felt it all – the moan, the grip of his fingers, the splash of his seed deep within me.

“Did I do it?” he asked. “Did I take away the pain?”

“Yes. Yes, you did, Jahar.”

He took my hand in his and kissed my fingers.

“My sweet girl...”

“Hey, bro.”

The slurred word, which had not come from either of our mouths, startled us. We turned our heads to the other bed.

Tamerlan lay on his side, supporting his head with his hand, eyes wide open. We didn’t need to ask him if he had been watching us all along.

“Was it goooood?” He pulled down his sheet, revealing his nakedness and his erection.

Jahar’s response was to pull our sheet up and adjust his forearm so his brother couldn’t see my breasts.

“Yeah, it was so good your dick caught on fire, huh? Now I gotta get somma that.”

Tamerlan rose from the bed.

“You. Will. Not. _Touch._ Her.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“You don’t have nothing to say, Jahar. I’m the leader, remember?”

“Not anymore. I am so done listening to your bullshit, Tamerlan. Your distortion of our religion. Your crazy stupid politics. I thought you were a god, because you’re my older brother, but you’re not. You’re a piece of shit. And I’m a piece of shit, too, because I obeyed you and destroyed so many people’s lives.”

Tamerlan’s lower lip trembled. His cheeks grew red.

“It ends here. We are not going to Times Square to set off bombs. We are going to the FBI to turn ourselves in. It is the only right thing we can do now.”

Jahar looked down at me.

“And this beautiful girl that we hurt so much is going to be free.”

“You little – ”

Tamerlan lunged for us.

Jahar clutched me and rolled me over to evade him.

The door exploded open.

“FREEZE!”

Large men in black protective gear broke the door open and swarmed in like giant insects.

Jahar rolled us off the bed until we fell off and landed in the space between the bed and the wall.

“PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

“FUCK YOU!”

_Bang! Bang!_

_Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!_

Jahar wrapped his arms around my head as gunfire filled the room. His lips covered mine for a desperate kiss.

A giant insect-man loomed above us. He grabbed Jahar by an arm and a leg and tried to yank him up. The sheet wrapped around our bodies kept us together.

I screamed, instinctively holding on fast to Jahar.

A couple of other insect-men reached into the space between the bed and the wall, grabbing the sheet and pulling us both onto the bed.

The insect men unrolled us until Jahar was free of the sheet. They cuffed his hands behind his back. Behind him, I could see Tamerlan’s naked body, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds – including one in the center of his forehead.

Jahar twisted his head to look at me. I looked into his dark, dark eyes, into the universe he held within.

His mouth opened, and I could not hear his words, but they looked like...

_“I love you.”_

* * *

**Epilogue**

On a cool, clear November day, opening statements began in the Federal trial of my lover.

He had over thirty counts against him – and more than one of those counts could bring him the death penalty. The conventional wisdom said it wasn’t likely he’d be executed, because of his youth and because his lawyers were going to make the case that Tamerlan had coerced him into the crime.

I was one of the people in attendance the first day. Eventually, I would be a witness, for among the crimes he was charged with was kidnapping across state lines...and rape.

I would be called upon to tell what happened to me. I would tell the truth. I had to.

But I would tell the whole truth.

I would tell about the young male thirst which compelled him to take me.

I would tell about the soft heart which compelled him to care for me.

I would tell of the final protective gesture which showed how he felt about me.

A tiny coo emerged from the pashmina blanket wrapped around my shoulder. The blanket filled with a ten-month-old baby girl with jet-black hair and wide, adorable brown eyes.

Truth be told, I didn’t know which one was her biological father. The one who came first, or the one who came last. I could have gotten a DNA test for my lover, but that was not the highest priority right now.

“All rise.”

Here he was, walking tall between his lawyers despite the orange jumpsuit, the handcuffs, and the leg shackles which signified his shame in society.

The bailiff unlocked his handcuffs, and he sat down at the desk in front of the judge’s bench. He turned his head around.

Our eyes connected.

He smiled.

I couldn’t help but smile back.

I lifted the blanket so he could see his baby’s face.

 _His_ baby?

How could I tell?

_“Jaja!”_

She knew.

Jahar blew us a kiss.

A kiss that stood in for his place in our family.

A kiss that stood in for everything he wanted to give to us.

A kiss that stood in for hope.

_Do I dare think it?_


End file.
